Megatrends

The most influential Megatrends set to shape the world through 2030, identified by Euromonitor International, help businesses better anticipate market developments and lead change for their industries.

As economically advantaged local buyers (particularly millennials) gain additional understanding of the importance of adopting healthier and sustainable lifestyles to support their personal wellbeing over time, the focus on custom and functional diets becomes ever more relevant in relation to consumer health demand. Key concepts such as leaky gut, intestinal health, microbiome balance and probiotics intake keep gaining momentum as major wellbeing foundations.

Additional segmentation and lower-priced generics set the pace of 2018’s value sales performance

Despite the slow economic performance experienced by Costa Rica during 2017-2018 (which combined with low innovation across most OTC categories), additional segmentation in terms of gender/age, usage occasions (as catered for through the introduction of, for example, day and night pills) and formats (such as pills, powders and gels) allowed stable growth rates for most consumer health categories, which were boosted by population increases and inflation during 2018. Consolidated OTC brands kept growing through traditional marketing strategies, often based on the launch of new brand extensions, covered by strong global umbrella brands, which benefit from multiple logistic savings and top-of-mind recognition.

Traditional international pharmaceuticals maintain their competitive advantages during 2018

Benefiting from their consolidated manufacturing and distribution capacity across the region, strong international pharmaceutical companies such as Bayer AG and GlaxoSmithKline Plc maintained their competitive edges in consumer health sales in Costa Rica during 2018. Their brands’ top-of-mind positions, broad levels of segmentation, good availability and affordable pricing strategies continued to set the pace in terms of OTC demand.

Distribution efforts continue to target modern grocery retailers and healthcare specialists, while players make room for online sales opportunities

Efforts in consumer health distribution remain associated with the rising availability of non-OTC categories such as sports nutrition, vitamins and dietary supplements, weight management and wellbeing, and herbal/traditional products across a growing base of modern grocery outlets and drugstores/pharmacies chains outside their traditional channels, healthfood shops. All-in-one shopping convenience is reflected in the expanding availability of popular OTC brands across modern grocery retailers, which, as in the case of Walmart and Auto Mercado, also include their own in-store pharmacies to provide a more-extensive assortment of OTC and BTC options.

New lifestyle and dietary habits are anticipated to continue influencing consumer health’s performance over the forecast period

As a broader base of younger mid- and high-end local buyers become interested in health, wellness and convenience it is anticipated that there will be additional development opportunities for preventive consumer health over the forecast period. Herbal/traditional products and basic dietary supplements and vitamins such as probiotics, minerals, vitamins B and D, sleep aids and articulations/joint support supplements will continue to penetrate, as they become more-important parts of balanced lifestyles that consider ageing, nutrition, physical activity and proper stress management.

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